n6 FLY FISHING 



on water where there is no May-fly, it is often 

 the best hour of the rise in the day using 

 the word "day" as distinct from "evening." 

 If I were forced to choose one hour, and 

 only one, in which to fish daily throughout 

 the season, it would be this hour from twelve 

 to one o'clock. Soon after one o'clock we 

 had to leave the water to go up to house for 

 dinner. It was a compulsory meal for which 

 one might be rather but not very late with- 

 out notice being taken, and the adjustment of 

 this point in one's mind, when fish were rising, 

 was a very distressing business. There are ways 

 my feet have often trod, but in which I have 

 seldom gone at a walking pace ; they are those 

 which are the shortest from different parts of 

 the river to the house in which I once was, 

 and many many times have I sped along them, 

 sometimes full of the joy of success, sometimes 

 in exasperation and despair, but nearly always 

 rather late, a rod at full length trembling and 

 shaking in the air as I ran. The best method 

 of making a good use of this hour on " Old 

 Barge" was to choose quickly an unoccupied 

 place where fish were rising, and to stick to it. 



